Feb 20 2009
Americans in Australia - Tasmania Part 2
Looking at my pictures helps to bring the memories back. We had such a good time bumping around Australia. Tasmania was special because it’s a special place.
Note to Roz : You can take a ferry across the passage from Australia to Tasmania, but go east and south before you start touristing.
We rented a car (a Holden) and first tried to drive to the southernmost tip of Tasmania. The part closest to Antarctica that we could go. We were stopped less than 20 miles from there because there was no road. In the US there’d at least be a state park with signs pointing to interesting things.
We drove up the east coast. If you look at yesterday’s beach picture, you might be able to see the brown edges on the close waves. This root-beer-like color comes from the tanin washed down the rivers into the ocean. The tanin comes from decaying trees far up the river.
We stopped here and there to look. While gawking around we began to see parrots flying in pairs from tree to tree flashing the yellow undersides of their wings. They were so utterly at home with their treetop world. After seeing them in Australia, I couldn’t bear the thought of bringing one home and giving it a big cage with a little perch and a bell to play with. These birds mate for life and they belong in the tops of trees, not inside as pets. My picture is of a lorikeet. The parrots fly too high to take their picture.
We saw other private zoos and lots of animals including koolas, but they were sleeping and I don’t have a picture.
We eventually arrived at the northern part of Tasmania and a city of sorts. I was aching to walk again, so I walked all over that town too.
The next day we drove south again through the mountainous backbone of the island. While the coast is well inhabited, the center of the island and the western rain forests were not. We drove through quiet high forest and discovered a lake in the middle that looked to be as large as Lake Tahoe in California, but it was isolated. Hardly a soul lived there.
We didn’t have time to take a look at the rain forests, it was time to catch the plane for Adelaide. Read up on it tomorrow.
Marilynne
Beautiful pictures! And a very interesting story. I have never been out of the US but would love to visit Australia. Our Secretary for our International nonprofit advocacy organization is in Australia and we always love to share pictures and stories about our lives. We find that although we live so far apart, our lives are really quite the same!
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I was never blessed with girls, but the boys make up for that in all that they do! We definitely always have some kind of drama going on and I can only imagine what it would be if I had girls! That is too much drama for my liking! LOL
Kristy
www.rememberwhen.today.com
www.mosaicmoments.today.com
Thanks for another intriguing episode! I would love to drive around Tasmania and experience the beauty of the place and its solitude. It’s great that so many parrots are in the wild here - we have them flying around our suburban neighbourhood all the time. My husband’s colleague took a wonderful photo of a parrot on his balcony - I will share it on my blog.
Roz
I’m looking forward to seeing the picture. They were always too busy and too far away for me to get a picture.
Marilynne
Yes, they are often moving fast and high up in the sky. It’s amazing that my husband’s colleague managed to get such a fantastic picture. I’ve just posted about it on my blog.
Roz